Buck and Eddie live rent free in my head

I got out of the ocean for you. - audio version on the link of my TikTok💜

“You plan on avoiding me forever?” Buck hears Eddie’s voice. It’s quiet. The room. And he’s standing by the door, as if he’s not decided if it’s appropriate to enter yet. This is not them, it’s not what they do. They’re not afraid of invading each other’s personal space. Never been. Except. Now they are? Eddie stays, glued to the door, silently asking for permission to step into Buck’s space. And Buck isn’t sure how to answer.

“I’m not avoiding you, Eddie. It’s just been a busy day.” Lie.

“You’re a terrible liar, Buck. I thought we’ve all established that.” He says and enters the room. Stands against the door, that’s as far as he can push, physically. He hopes words would get him farther.

“But if something’s wrong…in here” he says gently touching buck’s head with a finger, pointing. “You need to tell me. Anyone, about this. Whoever you feel okay sharing with. Don’t keep everything bottled up, Buck. Trust me. It took me way too long to realize how bad it is. How easy it is to spiral, how thin the line between okay and broken is. I may not be the person you want to talk to, maybe not right now. But find someone to talk to. If you don’t, you’ll just have to do it with me.”

“Why didn’t you just hit me?”

“What?”

“In the water. You could’ve shocked me out of the panic attack by hitting me.”

“I could’ve hit you, if that had even crossed my mind.”

“But you thought it was a good idea to kiss me?”

“I apologized for kissing you. I’m not going to apologize for bringing you back to reality. With so many lives at stake, you’ll forgive me if I couldn’t think very logically at that moment. I needed my partner back. I got him back. One way or another. Sue me.”

“I’ve done that already, I think” Buck knows it’s not time for jokes. But he’s here. And he’s not okay. And this is the only way he can continue with his day. He can cry later, he thinks. Eddie doesn’t need to see. He doesn’t need to know how confused Buck’s brain is. He doesn’t need to know about the 10 previous panic attacks. He doesn’t need to know about the way Buck will think about the kiss for a long time before it becomes only a faint memory of what happened on that cruise. And if the first night passes, then the second, the third turns into a week, which turns into a month and Buck keeps looking at his phone, at Eddie’s number, and night after night he fights the urge to call and ask for help - Well, Eddie doesn’t need to know.

“I trust you with everything I have, you know. I’ve trusted you with the most important person in my life. I let you help me when I wasn’t myself, not because someone needed to be there, but because I wanted you to be the person to bring me out of the ocean when I didn’t even want to try and learn how to swim, so I could swim back to you, Christopher and everyone else.” Eddie pauses for a bit, then “I want you to get out of the ocean for me this time. And I want to help you. Because I swam back to you. It would be very selfish if you didn’t do the same for me.”

She was there for Chris and Eddie in time of need and despite everything she did for them, he had to let her go because he couldn't bring himself to love her.